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The first story Swāmījī wanted us to read is the story of Mr. Bhatnagar. I will read it, taking it from the old version as Swāmījī instructed. During one of my many trips to Gujarat—this is Gurujī speaking—I was staying in the village of Sorastra Gondal at the home of a railroad official, Mr. V. L. Sharma. Naturally, I held a satsaṅg in his home, and many of his colleagues came to hear it. Among them was a Mr. S. P. Bhatnagar, an agnostic and a man who did not hesitate to speak his mind. After the satsaṅg, he said to me, "Sir, I must tell you frankly that I find satsaṅgs a waste of time. You hold out all sorts of unrealistic promises of happiness to poor, ignorant people, when you should be teaching them that life is hard and cruel, and they’ve got no one but themselves to rely on." Gurujī said, "Mr. Bhatnagar, you’ve never met a Mahātma, and that is why you can say such things. If you ever met a true master, he would open your eyes, and you would see that I have not spoken one single word that is not true." "Yes, well, I suppose you may be right about that," he admitted. "As a matter of fact, if there were any real masters, they might be able to help, but I don’t believe that there are. I have met many who have claimed to be wise and powerful, but none of them could do what they claimed. And certainly, no one has been able to impart to me any kind of insight or inspire me with any devotion towards God." I felt that this was certainly a person who needed to meet Mahāprabhujī. "Come with me to my master," I urged him. "He is truly an incarnation of Lord Viṣṇu, and when you know him, you will know that you have seen God’s divine power on earth." He agreed to come along, and secretly he made a list of 40 questions he wanted to ask Mahāprabhujī. They were things he had asked many Swāmīs before, concerning the most difficult and complicated religious matters. No one had ever given him a satisfactory answer, and for him, having light shed on these matters would be proof of Mahāprabhujī’s genuineness. Our journey to Balagudha lasted several days. When we arrived at the āśram, we saw Mahāprabhujī walking outside. I went up to him and, without a word, paid my salutations. He blessed me and then turned immediately to my companion and said, "Hello, Mr. Bhatnagar, welcome. You are suffering in blindness and ignorance, and you have 40 questions in your pocket that you’d like to ask me. That’s just fine. You can ask 40 or 80 or 500. Your ignorance will be taken care of here. You see, saints are always coming to distribute divine prasād in the world, and this will be my prasād for you." I’ve never seen anybody look as surprised as Mr. Bhatnagar did while Mahāprabhujī was saying these words to him. I could see his inner reserve begin to melt. He said, "How do you know all this?" Mahāprabhujī didn’t answer but invited him instead to go and refresh himself after his long journey. "Have some tea, make yourself comfortable, and then we will talk again," said Mahāprabhujī. As Mr. Bhatnagar and I walked into the āśram, he said to me, "I really think I’ve encountered a divine personality at last. He read my thoughts." A while later, Mr. Bhatnagar returned to Mahāprabhujī, and they began to talk. Their discussion took a remarkable form. Mr. Bhatnagar would be silently phrasing a question, and Mahāprabhujī would answer it before he spoke. I could see how wonderful it was for Mr. Bhatnagar, whose thirst for knowledge was being quenched at last. By and by, I saw his eyes slowly close as he entered samādhi. We all went off to our afternoon occupations, including Mahāprabhujī. But in Mr. Bhatnagar’s inner world, the wondrous discussion with the Master continued. After many hours, all his questions had been answered, and he found himself alone in the room. He went to look for Mahāprabhujī, whom he found sitting in another part of the āśram talking to devotees. Mr. Bhatnagar prostrated himself and, weeping tears of gratitude, said, "Lord of mercy, you have opened my eyes and removed my ignorance. Today, for the first time, I have experienced reality." At about ten that evening, Mahāprabhujī showed Mr. Bhatnagar to a wooden bed. There he lay down and closed his eyes and was blessed with another vision. He saw a brilliant light which illuminated everything in the universe. For over an hour he lay there in blissful contemplation of this divine light. Then his eyes opened and he knelt again before Mahāprabhujī, speaking the following poem: "Mahāprabhujī, you yourself are the unearthly incandescence, the unearthly light. This is my prayer. Have mercy on me. You are indescribable, and rare is he who can understand you. The others are all blighted souls who sit and weep in their ignorance." He continued, "O Lord, I pray that your divine light may illuminate my whole inner and outer self. I pray to realize your omniscient and omnipresent form, to break out of the worldly illusion in which we are all enclosed." This happy man stayed at the āśram for many days. When at last he had to leave, he asked Mahāprabhujī if there was anything he could do for him. Mahāprabhujī replied, "Bhatnagarjī, the whole universe is my Ātmā, and I am the Ātmā of the whole universe. Live your life so that it brings benefit to the world, and do all you can to help all living beings. That is what I wish for you. Your Ātmā is mine and mine is yours. If you wish to give me something, give me your promise that you will live a life of truth." Mr. Bhatnagar bowed deeply, gave his promise, and lived. I accompanied him to the railway station, and as we bid one another farewell, he said to me, "If I did not have the obligations of my work, I would spend all my time with him." Gurujī said to him, "Bhatnāgarjī, you know that he is everywhere. All you have to do is think of him, and he is with you." So that’s the first story. Good luck to Mr. Bhatnagarjī, that he got to have that darśan. But perhaps when you think in your own experience, have you ever come to Swāmījī with a question in your mind or in your pocket, and actually, while you’re sitting there waiting to ask it, you’ve already got the answer? In the end, you somehow feel foolish to ask the question. For me also, the special quality of Mr. Bhatnagar in that story is that he was so fixed in his ideas that there was no God, but he was still open to listen. He was still open to hear that satsaṅg which was coming to him. In Jadan, when I’m going to functions in the villages—very regularly to open a mandir, a temple—there’s always a big function, a lot of people, lots of eating, and lots of guests coming. For my mind, somehow the temple itself and the whole object of the function gets lost in this melā that is around. What I like to try and remind people in those functions—I don’t think I succeed very well, but I try—is that when you come to that temple, if you want to get a message from that God or get something from that visit to the temple, then you need to be quiet so you can hear. You need to be listening rather than constantly asking questions. It seems in the story of Mr. Bhatnagar, he was asking a lot of questions, but at the same time, he was also able to listen. He closed his eyes, and he could listen to what was to be said. Now, when you think about it, if you go to the mandir and you want to request something of God—whatever is your belief, whoever it is that you believe in—if you’re going there with the expectation that you’ll be able to fulfill that wish, then it’s highly likely that he already knows the request, he or she. For me, that’s so important when you come to the āśram, when you come to Mahāprabhujī or you come to Swāmījī. While you may have your questions, you may have your doubts, you might, from your own experience, without even really listening to it, without really listening to what he said, first have a reaction. Afterwards, if you can actually get over your own "buts"—and there’s a saying in English, "Don’t stick your butt in my face," I don’t know how you could translate that—but look, just after that, I was about to say "but." But it’s true. Sorry, again. The first reaction is always, "But." I was talking the other night about one incident in our school with the trucks and the buses, for those who were here. And my first reaction was, "But Swāmījī, that’s impossible. You can’t do that." Swāmījī gives us a Vākya, and something is inside it, something is there. It’s there to be listened to. And so many times, you, such old disciples, I’m sure you’ve found also that afterwards you realize, yes, Swāmījī was right. If you’re lucky, you’ll have listened to what he said, actually done it, and discovered he was right. Or if you’re not so lucky, you won’t have listened and done something else, and afterwards be going, "Oh, Swāmījī was right." But it’s one thing to be told, it’s another thing to be able to listen. And here we are, like Mr. Bhatnagar. And we have the chance to listen to Swāmījī, to this divine knowledge. It might not be something that’s always easy to understand. It might go against our logic. Yet inside is something that we may hopefully one day grasp, understand, and experience—the truth that is inside. To take the time always to listen, not to react to what is being said. Try to hear the essence which is behind the words, and then put them into practice.